No Words
by ilovetvalot
Summary: Sometimes there are no words to describe the pain. Reid/Morgan MILD slash


**_Author's Note_**_: We're excited to announce our Round 3 of our Fanfic Challenge on Chit Chat on Author's Corner forum. The **Dealer's Choice August Challenge** is a great way to stretch your writing muscles! Please see the forum for further details. We'd love to have you! And please visit the forum to read our latest interviews with the simply amazing **Michaela123 and Cinnyangel!** And please join our newest discussion threads, **"What's on Your Bookshelf"** where readers tell us about the published books and authors that inspire them, **"The Art of the Well-Crafted** **Author's Note...To Write or Not To Write", **and finally, **"What Fuels Our Drive to Write?"**. Please drop by and check them out. And lastly, please keep our fellow authors, **Angel N Darkness** and **Darcie91 **within your prayers. Both ladies have been in serious accidents and have separate discussion threads where readers and authors alike may leave their best wishes! That's all for this time folks! Thanks to all who have read, reviewed, favorited or alerted our stories. We continue to appreciate each one of you!_

**No Words**

Derek Morgan stared at his front door with intense eyes, silently willing the visitor he knew was on his way, compliments of Hotch's phone call, to arrive. Usually, knowing that his Pretty Boy was in route to his place would send thrills of anticipation shooting through his veins and set a wicked smile curling on his lips.

But not tonight. Never tonight.

Cursing himself for cutting out of work an hour early on today, of all days, Morgan slammed his hand heavily against the couch cushion. His lover had gotten the news all alone. His arms should have been around him when the crushing blow had been sadly delivered by Hotch. It should have been his body the younger man leaned on.

He'd told Hotch that he was on his way back in the second the words had left the Unit Chief's lips, but his genius had already been en route to him. So now, all he could do was wait...and he'd never been particularly good at that. Mostly because, at the moment, he knew exactly how Spencer Reid felt. He'd experienced that acute loss in his own life on the day his own father had died.

And sadly, he also knew that whether you're two, twelve or fifty, no child is ever prepared to endure that loss. Especially not Dr. Spencer Reid.

His boy had spent a lifetime locking away emotions he didn't understand, a self-protective mechanism born from the difficulties of his childhood. A father's desertion, a mother's debilitating illness, an IQ that made Einstein's appear child-like. He was a little kid that had been forced to grow up much too soon, partially because of his home life and partially because of his talent.

And none of it had been fair. Or easy. And none of it meant that the confused man hadn't loved his mother with every fiber in his being.

He had. Derek knew he had.

But those were all things which Derek couldn't change for the man he loved. What he could do was hold Spencer when the grief overwhelmed him tonight. And it would. It was going to come with the force of a tidal wave, threatening to suffocate the young man. He'd been there before. And all he could do was be a lifejacket wrapped round his lover.

Bounding off the couch as he heard Spence's metal key scraping the lock, Derek wrenched the door open, meeting the shattered, wet face staring back at him with a soft look. "Pretty boy," he whispered, gathering the slim body against him just as Reid's knees buckled.

Drawing him inside and keeping his chilled body pressed against his own, Morgan kicked the door shut before half dragging, half carrying Reid to the sofa and easing him down on the cushions. Stepping back to survey his lover, one word leapt to mind. Mangled. His beautiful man looked positively mangled by grief.

"She's gone," Reid whispered blankly, his sightless eyes staring straight ahead into nothingness. "She's gone and I canceled my visit. I thought I could go next week. If I'd known..."

"Spencer, baby," Morgan shook his head, kneeling in front of the younger man and cupping his pale cheeks, physically forcing Reid's gaze to meet his, "You couldn't have known," he said softly, lovingly, but with a gentle sternness.

"But," Reid tried to say, his voice cracking on that one simple word.

But. His entire world had been reduced to but. To what ifs. To maybes and if onlys.

"But, nothing, Pretty Boy. Your mom loved you with everything she had and she knew you loved her the same way," Morgan replied, his rich baritone solid in the silent apartment.

"I should have been with her, Derek," Reid whispered shakily, raising a trembling hand to press against his forehead. "I would have been if I hadn't been selfish. I'd have been there."

"Hey, are you forgetting our last visit out to Vegas to see her? Do you remember what she told you?" Derek asked quietly, using his thumbs to capture the tears falling steadily from Spencer's eyes. "Because I do. She told you how proud she was of you...how much she loved you. And she called you out on this habit you have of taking the blame for things you can't control. And baby, you couldn't control this. Nobody could."

"Derek," Reid sobbed brokenly, leaning forehead as he attempted to ease the overwhelming ache in his chest, "She's gone...and I never said good-bye."

Gathering Spencer's weeping lover against his chest as grief's first powerful storm swept him up within its arms, Derek Morgan could only hold on tight.

Because there were no words.

_**Finis**_


End file.
